The first time she was invited to the White House, she was in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump and a group of Republicans for a meeting about health care.

Sitting in front of the president’s desk, she introduced herself as Martha McSally, the representative from Tucson and the only woman veteran among Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The president wanted to hear more about her time in the Air Force, she told GOP voters during a recent campaign stop on the patio of a north Scottsdale hamburger joint.

She abandoned decorum, she told the Palo Verde Republican Women club, where those listening to her ate sliders, french fries and yogurt parfaits.

She told Trump all about the "big ass" fighter-jet she once flew as the first female fighter pilot.

He asked if that jet, the A-10 Thunderbolt II — nicknamed the "Warthog" — was still flying.

Sensing that Trump was loath to "do anything" that his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, did, McSally recalled choosing her words carefully.

"I said, ‘The last administration tried to put it in the boneyard, but you’re going to have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands, Mr. President.'”

Her brief encounter with Trump has taken on outsized importance for McSally's U.S. Senate bid. As she glad-hands her way through campaign stops across the state, McSally is using the anecdote to convey her access to and connection with the commander-in-chief.

Among the Republicans vying for the party's Senate nomination, McSally has the most to prove in establishing her Trump bona fides. She did not endorse Trump in the 2016 election — and may not have voted for him — but she must now curry his favor to win the GOP nomination for Arizona's open U.S. Senate seat.

It's a short-term gamble to court Republican Party primary voters that, should she win, could alienate the broader spectrum of voters in the Nov. 6statewide general election.

On this afternoon, the story seemed to do the trick. McSally's retelling in north Scottsdaledrew audible gasps and boisterous applause from this GOP club, making an impression on voters who didn't know a lot about her, but love Trump.

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McSally bragged that she's been invited to the White House for exclusive movie screenings, has taken phone calls from Trump and his staff, and is leading on issues at the top of his agenda, namely border security.

She even attempts an impression of Trump's New York accent.

Many voters walked away with the impression that McSally would staunchly support the president's agenda.

Though Trump’s presidency has roiled the political outlook for the GOP, it has galvanized Arizona’s base Republican voters who support him and his agenda and want to send another Trump ally to Capitol Hill.

These voters disdain U.S. Sen. John McCain and outgoing U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, Republicans who have publicly opposed Trump's policies and performance.

CLOSE

U.S. Rep. Martha McSally told the Palo Verde Republican Women club about the first time she met President Donald Trump.
Arizona Republic

A potentially risky tactic

That dynamic leaves McSally in the position of embracing the polarizing president in ways that may come back to haunt her in the general election, when she will need the support of McCain- and Flake-style moderate Republicans and independents.

Up until recently, McSally had cultivated a more moderate image while representing Arizona's swing 2nd Congressional District.

In a sign that they view McSally as a potentially formidable general-election foe, Democrats constantly have been hammering McSally as a onetime "Never Trumper" who is cozying up to him because now it is politically advantageous.

Clearly hoping to damage her chances in the GOP primary, the Democrats have dredged up example after example of McSally's hands-off approach towards him during the 2016 election, and comments from a 2017 town hall, where she characterized the early days of his presidency as "tremendously bumpy."

At that town hall, McSally acknowledged she did not support a "contiguous" border wall, which Trump called for repeatedly on the 2016 campaign trail. She consistently has called for improved border technology, aerial assets, and in some places, physical barriers.

While the likely Democratic nominee, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, is introducing herself to voters with slick TV ads that appeal to voters across the board, McSally is forced to waste precious time and money protecting her right flank.

Days ago, McSally launched new TV and radio ads that say she is working with Trump to "secure our border." The TV ad features a clip of Trump calling her his friend and praising her as "the real deal." As a senator, she promises to "build the wall," crack down on sanctuary cities, and give border agents the resources they need to "complete their mission."

Her campaign spokeswoman would not share details on the size of the advertisement buy.

"It's a necessary part of a primary in Arizona. At the same time, it does put her in an odd place for the general," said Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes U.S. Senate races for the influential, nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C.

Cook has rated the race a toss-up, a sign of Republicans' perceived vulnerability in a traditionally GOP-leaning state that Trump carried over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by 3.5 percentage points.

Looking to broaden support

If she wins the primary, McSally will have just a couple of months to broaden her appeal to independents and other voters before the Nov. 6 general election.

Republicans are still the largest bloc of voters at 34.8 percent, although independents are just one-tenth of a point behind at 34.7 percent. Democrats, meanwhile, make up 30.5 percent of the electorate.

"She's pretty used to the pivot," Duffy added. "She's done this. It's not like some of these members who run for statewide office have never met a Democratic voter."

McSally's Tucson-based 2nd District is evenly divided among Republicans and Democrats and is often one of the most competitive in the United States.

McSally lost her 2012 congressional bid by 2,454 votes and won in 2014 by just 167.

But she won a second term in 2016 by nearly 44,000 votes, or 14 percentage points at a time when the district's voters went for Clinton by nearly 5 percentage points.

In this year's Senate race, McSally is locked in a primary fight with former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former state Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Lake Havasu City, two conservative firebrands who can boast of their own relationships with Trump.

Former state Sen Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Kingman, will not pledge to support Martha McSally if McSally wins the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.(Photo: Rob Schumacher/The Republic)

Both have long-championed greater border security and Ward is hammering McSally as one-time "Never Trumper" whose embracing of Trump should be seen as an election-year gimmick.

"I have been consistent in my conservative views and in my support of Donald J. Trump," Ward told the GOP women's group this month, while drawing contrasts with McSally.

Ward will not pledge to support McSally if McSally wins the nomination.

Ward's spokesman, Zachery Henry, wrote in a statement: "It's hard to tell which McSally we would see in the general election, assuming she actually was able to win."

Faithful to Trump's agenda

Contrary to the barbs thrown by the Ward campaign, McSally has been a faithful House member in Arizona's delegation to the Trump agenda. Since Trump's presidency began, she has sided with the president 83 of 85 times — or 98 percent of the time — on key votes where the White House's position was known, according to an analysis by the website FiveThirtyEight.

With a reported $4.5 million cash on hand, McSally has the clear money advantage. She is considered a top recruit by U.S. Senate leadership, and is polling ahead in recent surveys.

McSally's conservative credentials have earned the support of primary voters like Helene Gross, 74, of Phoenix.

Learning that McSally literally had a seat at the president's table gave her "extra confidence" in voting for her in August, she told The Arizona Republic.

Gross is originally from Long Island, New York, and views Trump as a "character-and-a-half" who is sometimes misunderstood. But she largely supports his agenda and McSally seems to have that same kind of tough-talking persona that can shake things up, she said.

"I was really interested in what she had to say about her influence over Trump and the information she's inputting to him, which I think is pretty favorable, myself," Gross said.

Jeanne Sterrett, a retired government consultant in her late 60s from Paradise Valley, said McSally's pitch showcased her military and congressional experience, particularly her personal fight as an Air Force pilot against terrorism after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, border security, and illegal immigration.

If elected to the U.S. Senate, McSally's relationship with Trump would force the "do-nothing Senate" to get something done, she said.

"She does, truly, know the swamp," Sterrett said. "Martha has already been in the swamp. She has the rapport with Trump and I think she has the chutzpah to get the job done."

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Focus on border security

For many of the voters at this GOP event, and at other voter gatherings across the state, border security remains a defining issue.

McSally plays up her perch as the chairwoman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on border and maritime security, but other recent maneuverings have overshadowed her work on that panel.

McSally has backed away from "Dreamer" legislation she previously endorsed since she announced her Senate candidacy in January. Congress has been grasping for a solution for the young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children; Trump has been trying to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which Obama created via executive action to shield "Dreamers" from deportation.

McSally was a co-sponsor of the Recognizing America's Children Act, a bill that was viewed as the GOP-initiated alternative to the 2017 Dream Act. She has since dropped her support of that bill.

In January, she introduced the Securing America’s Future Act, a tougher GOP bill that addresses border security, which would fund Trump's border wall, and crack down on so-called sanctuary communities in addition to addressing the DACA population.

McSally constantly refers to it as "my bill," a somewhat disingenuous characterization. Although she was among the lawmakers who worked on it and co-sponsored it, the prime sponsor is Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.

"Just know that I am leading on the issue," she told voters.

Earlier this summer, a video of McSally calling for a solution for undocumented children brought to the U.S. "at no fault of their own” was quietly removed from her official YouTube channel, another sign that she is trying to delete her past record as a moderate Republican on immigration now that she has settled on a harder-line stance.

She has not answered questions about the video's removal.

Those nuances and attacks might not matter for undecided voters like Barbara Cardinal, a Republican from Fountain Hills who hadn't heard too much about McSally until her appearance at the club.

"I see this information that I got today with Kelli Ward saying that she's not strong on border security, but I can't quite believe that — especially being in the military," she said. "I can't quite believe that she's not tough on (the) border."

Though Sinema, the likely Democratic Senate nominee, has said Trump is “not a thing” in the election, even she is crowing this month about legislation she's been involved with that Trump has signed.

On this day, McSally told voters it won't be easy to take down Sinema. She hinted at the contrast she and her allies would launch in a potential match-up.

"She is a chameleon," McSally said of Sinema. "She'll be, like, anything that she needs to be in order to meet her objectives."

McSally laid bare one contrast they could expect to see on the airwaves, which in this crowd, played well.

While she was in Saudi Arabia after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, ramping up in the expectation of responding, she said, Sinema was "protesting in a pink tutu against any military action against terrorists.

"There's going to be a contrast there that voters are going to be able to see."